


The Labyrinth

by Snowflake88



Series: The I.D.E.A. Chronicles [1]
Category: Code:Realize ～創世の姫君～ | Code: Realize - Guardian of Rebirth (Visual Novel), Code:Realize～創世の姫君～ | Code:Realize ~Sousei no Himegimi~ | Code:Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~ (Anime)
Genre: ElementalManipulator!San, Empath!Fran, Gen, Mutant Powers, Rogue!Cardia, SuperStrength!Van, Superheroes AU, Superspeed!Impey, Teleporting!Lupin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:53:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23876488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowflake88/pseuds/Snowflake88
Summary: Fran, an empath, is kidnapped by Nemo and is barely able to hold on to his sanity through the pain. Saint Germain, who sensed an imbalance in the world of enhanced abilities, sets up a mission for his gang to find the empath and either rescue or kill him before it's too late.
Series: The I.D.E.A. Chronicles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1720762
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	The Labyrinth

**Author's Note:**

> Saint Germain and his motley crew are members of I.D.E.A. - Integrated Defense of Enhanced Abilities. This collection of one-shots are written in this alternate universe where every member has two or more super-powers. Their powers are as follows:
> 
> Saint Germain (Leader): Immortality, Time Warp, Elemental Manipulation  
> Cardia Beckford: Acid Generation / Enhanced Senses  
> Arsene Lupin: Invisibility / Teleportation  
> Impey Barbicane: Superspeed / Invulnerability  
> Van Helsing: Super Strength / Invulnerability / Enhanced Senses  
> Victor Frankenstein: Empathy / TBA / TBA
> 
> Disclaimer: I make no money from this - I'm only playing in the Code: Realize sandbox with these pretty characters. And I gave them superpowers. Heh... Please seek permission before translating this work. Thank you!
> 
> Credits: Cover design "The Labyrinth" by Hikari011 (Wattpad)

The facility was far more convoluted than they had thought – at least where the interior was concerned. Whoever had designed it had created tunnel-like mazes that discombobulated intruders – which they were. Even though there were five of them, it was taking them far longer to search their assigned sections for their target. It didn’t help that intense waves of pain and panic were pulsing through the air and bearing down on them at every turn.

“Tone it down, you damned empath, we’re trying to get to you,” cursed Impey under his breath as he turned yet another corner. The emotional onslaught was confusing him even more and he was sure that he had already been down this very path, but they all looked the same to him, so he could only check his compass and mark off the section he had covered on the map he was holding. His enhanced speed had no use in such a situation, and he wished there had been a wide open space instead - he’d have picked up the hostage and been out again in no time at all! He pressed the button on his communicator to inform the others of his status. “Impey, Sector 3 all clear. No signs of the hostage. Crossing over to Sector 4. Over.”

“Roger, Impey. We’ll tranquilise him the moment we get to him. I can’t take these waves anymore either and I can’t teleport with all these false walls around unless I know exactly where I am. Sector 6 and 7 all clear with no signs of the hostage. Over,” Lupin’s voice sounded tinny through his earpiece.

“Cardia here. Section 1 is clear, halfway through Sector 2. I had to knock out two guards, but no signs of the hostage. Over.”

“Cardia-chan! I guess those moves Van Helsing taught you came in handy after all, but please stay safe!” Impey cried a little too loudly over the communicator, making everyone wince. “Uh… over.”

“Why don’t you alert everyone to our presence, you moron?” Van Helsing’s voice hissed through the earpiece. “Van here. Sector 11 is clear, moving to Sector 12. Five guards knocked out. I suspect he’s in my vicinity given the increased guard. Over.”

“Roger, Van. All sectors clear on my end. Heading over to join you. San, out.”

Another wave of panic sizzled through the air, causing everyone to pause and re-orientate their own sense of self. The waves caused their own heartbeats to accelerate and breathing to harshen, and they had to stop every now and then to regulate their own breathing and check against their blueprint maps to ensure that they had fully covered their sectors, which had been assigned according to a radial pattern. The further they were away from their target, the less intense the waves were, but they were disorientating, nonetheless. Even Saint Germain and Van Helsing, the most experienced and battle-hardened of the group, were not immune to the effects.

Van gritted his teeth and strained the limits of his own physical senses, which were already enhanced, to search for any signs of the hostage. The waves of terror the hostage clearly felt were pulsing with the regularity of a subwoofer, so he knew the empath had to be close by. Then images he did not recognize began crowding through his mind, and he dropped to his knees as his head began to pound. He felt nauseous. Through the haze and fogginess that had begun clouding his mind, he thought he could hear a man’s agonised scream followed by another’s maniacal laughter.

Impey’s voice resounded through the earpiece again. “Bloody hell, what was that? I felt like my mind was invaded. Anyway, I’ve met up with Cardia-chan, and we’ve discovered this machine that seems to be a generator of sorts. I’m going to try to shut it down – maybe it’s responsible for that poor guy’s pain and panic. Over!”

“Lupin here. All sectors clear on my end. Will apparate over to you, Impey! Send me your coordinates. Over.”

“San here. That seemed like a telepathic wave. It’s not something he’s supposed to be able to do, unless Nemo triggered something. Van, are you alright? Send me your current coordinates. Over.”

Van had enough presence of mind to depress a button on his wristwatch, a little addition Impey had made to enable each member to indicate his or her precise location relative to a chosen spot. They had synchronised their devices from the point they had entered the building. San would get to him – it was just a matter of how long it would take, given the twists and turns of the sector he had just gone through. “Van here. Coordinates sent. I thought I heard voices at my end. Assistance appreciated, San. Out.” He itched to move on ahead once he regained his balance, but he knew he had to remain where he was if Saint Germain was coming to join him.

Saint Germain’s direction had been to rescue the hostage if possible, or eliminate if necessary, and as Van waited, his thoughts turned to the individual in question. The pulse of panic had dulled somewhat – it seemed their target was now in a semi-catatonic state, although the flow of images and information continued to spill into his mind like an unchecked river. He couldn’t make sense of half of it, but he saw glimpses into the other’s life – memories? – that suggested a sheltered background, academic brilliance, and a heart that felt extraordinarily for others. Upon discovering that he had empathic abilities, this individual had apparently tried to minimise his contact with people whenever he could help it, turning his attention instead to the objective world of science and microbes and chemicals. There was also something that the empath did not want to reveal – like a swathe of black where that information lay – and it seemed that Nemo was currently trying to extract this very same information from him through whatever means possible. If the assault continued, that knowledge could well be revealed to the enemy. Knowing Nemo, nothing good could come out of this. He hoped that Impey’s attempt to shut down the machine would work, otherwise…

The sound of a near-silent footfall alerted him to San’s presence, and he looked up to see an unreadable expression on his leader’s face. Previous missions had always been about faceless targets – Saint Germain would activate the team once he sensed an imbalance in the distribution of special abilities; and they had eliminated their fair share of targets when it became clear that the abilities had mutated beyond control. Those whom they had managed to rescue were rehabilitated under IDEA, the organization that San was closely associated with, where they would be trained to harness their abilities. This motley crew had all been through IDEA at one point or another. This was the first time, however, that they had experienced this much of the target’s emotions and now memories. It reminded them all of the uncomfortable fact that beneath the mutant ability lay a living and breathing human being. Despite San’s attempt to keep his face neutral, Van knew that killing this target would not sit well with any of them now that they all had a sense of who the person beneath was.

Van extended his senses in every direction – the smell of fear still permeated the air and he could use it to pinpoint the shortest straight-line route to the empath, but the mazelike walls and corridors would have been a huge hindrance had he been on his own. With San now with him, the route was much more plain-sailing. He pointed towards a wall, and San placed his ungloved hand over the surface, and it began to ripple, atoms shifting and disassembling beneath his touch, until a narrow portal appeared, no wider than a person, with a liquid-like veil. It was how San had got through his own sections so swiftly before, and Van had no doubts that it was how he had managed to join him so quickly after he had sent his coordinates. It was still not his preferred way of moving around despite its convenience – each step through the liquid veil felt as if every part of his body was being sucked through some kind of clear quicksand. The wall would regain its original condition after a minute, unless Saint Germain sped up the process, but he usually did not do so as it used up unnecessary energy, so each portal closed behind them barely a minute after they got through. He would have wished for Lupin’s teleporting ability to get them through these places even more swiftly, but the brunette was currently with Impey and Cardia.

The images that had been filtering through his head suddenly came to a stop, and he heard a loud cry of dismay that could not be further than a few metres away.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! We were so CLOOOOOOOOOOOOOSE! What happened to the machine? Verne! Check the electrROOOOOOOODEs!”

A series of thuds were heard through the walls, and Van’s extra-sharp hearing picked up what sounded like the smacking of a hand across flesh.

“WAAAAAAKE up, Franny BOOOOYY! I’m not done with you yet! Even if the machine doesn’t WOOOORK anymore, your mind’s now an open book to MEEEEEEE!”

San nodded at Van, and he readied his guns, bracing himself for the next move. The wall rippled beneath San’s touch, and once the veil was semi-translucent, he hurtled straight through it, landing like a cat on all fours in the adjacent room. Almost immediately, Saint Germain stepped through the veil behind him before raising his hands in a gesture Van knew all too well.

Time warped around them, slowing down to a mere fraction of its original pace while Van moved at regular speed through the room’s tableau. Nemo was hauling the limp body of their target up by the collar with one hand, his other seemingly frozen, pressed against the slack face in what had been a slap to revive him, while his assistant’s hand was stilled in mid-air, reaching for the wires that were attached to a contraption around the empath’s head. In movements faster than the eye could see, Van Helsing had unfixed Nemo’s hold on the empath’s collar, delivered a kick to the assistant, and unloaded a rock-salt blast from his shotgun straight to Nemo’s chest. As Saint Germain continued to slow the time down around them, he loosened the wingnuts that affixed the contraption to the empath’s head, unstrapped him from the gurney he had been laid on, and hefting the surprisingly light burden onto his shoulders, he catapaulted across the room and was through the portal which was just beginning to close up again.

Saint Germain slid through the portal to join him, his hands still raised, before lowering them again. They ducked down as the slit in the wall healed itself, and a loud series of crashes in the next room informed them that time had resumed its normal flow. After quickly relaying through his communicator that the target had been secured, San pressed the button on his transmitting device to notify the rest of their location. Stealth was key in all their operations, and the group counted on the abilities of everyone present. Leave no trace – that was IDEA’s modus operandi, and in the event that things got messy, or their targets were compromised in any way, they were not above eliminating them to restore the delicate balance that their world depended on.

A light crack in the air next to them announced the arrival of the rest of the group. Lupin’s ability to apparate could be extended to the others if they could get a hold on him, but the more people he had to teleport at one go, the more quickly his energy was drained. Everyone reached out to hold on to Lupin’s arms while he grabbed hold of the empath’s limp wrist, and with a slightly louder crack, they apparated on the front steps of the building they had just been in. Lupin sagged in exhaustion, only to be caught by Impey, and they all hurried over to their getaway car as Nemo’s scream of frustration blasted through the building. Van curled his lip in distaste at the discordant sound, but his pace hardly faltered as he boarded the discreet minivan with his lanky burden still in his arms.

Their getaway vehicle peeled away from the scene with Impey at the wheel, and their rescued target still showed no signs of waking. Saint Germain picked up the limp wrist to check the pulse and found it erratic. Despite being disconnected from the machine, the empath was still locked in a nightmare he didn’t seem able to escape. For the time being, at least, he was not projecting his own emotions onto those around him. He looked questioningly over at Lupin and Cardia, who had been with Impey on the other side of the facility.

“Impey tried to shut the programme down remotely, but he said the corruption of the software would take some time,” Lupin offered by way of explanation. “It seems whatever they got off of him will eventually be destroyed, but we decided not to wait to put a stop to whatever it was doing on a… ah… more immediate basis.” He gestured to Cardia with a lopsided smile.

The sweet-faced girl held up her hands, which were covered with specially engineered gloves. “I took my gloves off and melted down the CPU, its internal parts and all its connecting wires,” she said matter-of-factly. “Impey told me that a computer’s a machine at the end of the day. If the parts don’t work, it can’t do its job, right? Anyway, right after I did so, the images stopped coming through.”

The corners of San’s lips curled upwards in amusement as he considered Cardia. She was the newest addition to the group, but her instincts were impeccable, however rash and rough-edged her actions tended to be. It seemed that her actions had indeed cut off the programme that had caused the empath all that agony, as well as destroyed whatever data it had attempted to retrieve, but it remained to be seen what the aftereffects were, and it would all depend on what happened if and when the unconscious empath revived.

***

The relentless roar that stripped his senses of the world around him was finally ceasing, and the wall of light that had seared his eyes from within finally faded to a more tolerable grey. It was still difficult to breathe – something was pressing down on his chest, and he arched upward, his entire body screaming in pain as every muscle spasmed. Yet, despite his best efforts, he couldn’t move his arms or legs – they were tied down – strapped? A moan broke through the chapped lips, and his eyes moved restlessly beneath their lids, which still refused to open.

“Hush now, you are safe, child,” he heard a voice say above him, and he calmed down somewhat. _Keep talking to me, please_ , he begged the unknown owner of the voice as his throat moved with soundless speech. _I cannot find my way out._

“Did you… I think I just heard your thoughts,” the voice replied aloud. It had a soothing, rich timbre, and he immediately felt a connection to it. He reached out with his empathic feelers – this presence spoke of safety – he could cling on to this voice that anchored him in this sea of despair. “Can you open your eyes for me?” the voice continued.

How ridiculously simple a request, and yet his eyes continued to roll restlessly beneath the closed lids – he did not know which muscles to activate. Then his lids fluttered, and summoning a gargantuan effort he concentrated as best as he could, and as his bloodshot eyes finally opened to reveal vivid green irises, the grey and the roar and the pain fell away and he registered an unfamiliar room, dim in the light filtering through drawn curtains, and a white-haired man hovering above him wearing an expression of concern.

“You are finally awake. Let me loosen the straps,” the man said – he was the owner of that voice. “I apologise for the state in which we have kept you – you were unconscious for three days, and you had fits and convulsions, so we strapped you down for your own safety.”

_Three days?_ He was freed from the restraints, including one that had been placed across his chest, and indeed the breathing became much easier. The white-haired man smiled gently and helped him sit up, propping pillows against his back. A half cup of water with a straw in it was held up to him, and after some effort, he got his mouth to work, his lips puckering around the straw, then sucking and swallowing by pure instinct.

When he had drained the cup, the white-haired man set it aside before speaking again. “Let me introduce myself. My name is Saint Germain, and I am the leader of a motley crew that rescued you from Nemo’s facility. I am from IDEA – It stands for Integrated Defense of Enhanced Abilities. We retrieve individuals who possess special skills, and we will train you to harness your skills in the right way. I am pleased to finally make your acquaintance, Mr…?”

He was being asked for his name. He successfully opened his mouth to speak, and his Adam’s apple jumped as his throat worked to form a verbal response, but that was where it all stopped. He could only stare wide-eyed at Saint Germain in panic. _I don’t know._ The thought was frantic, swelling to fill up the entirety of where his mind had been. _I don’t remember who I am!_

Across from him, Saint Germain reeled from the waves of terror that swept over at his own consciousness like a drowning man grasping at his only lifeline, and that single all-encompassing cry that screamed through his head. Then, the objects within the room began to tremble and shake, and he did the only thing he could in self-defense.

He threw both his hands up, stopping time in its tracks.

**Author's Note:**

> I made a CR server, with Van / Fran at its centre. However, all CR fans are welcome to come on board. Sail the uncharted waters with me at https://discord.gg/ZjdXTtw


End file.
